How to setup CloudFare CDN for WordPress site?

Page Speed is one of the major factors which contributes to user-experience. Page speed is different from site speed. Your site speed is the page speed of the sample of a site. But on the other hand, page speed is page load time or First Byte Time- Time to receive the first byte from the server.

Why is page speed important?

In today’s world, when most websites are loaded on mobile devices, if your site takes longer to load on user’s mobile device, you’ve quite possibly lost the user forever. It’s even more difficult or costlier to get back that one lost user than bringing in new users. Imagine the number of retargeting ads you have to run to get back the user who thinks your site is too slow for them.

Here comes in CloudFare. CloudFare provides a CDN (Content Delivery Network) or a distributed proxy server. It essentially optimized your website’s page speed by acting as a proxy between your website visitors and user server. Over all, CloudFare offers 5 features that help in optimizing your page speed:

CDN: CloudFare’s CDN will distribute your content around the world so it’s closer to your visitors (speeding up your site).

Optimization: CloudFare will load your pages with ad servers and third-party widgets fast on your mobile and computers. It does this by minimizing the number of network connections, combining JavaScript files into a single request, among others.

DNS: CloudFare also run a DNS service with global coverage, built-in security, and robust API. This is more secure as CloudFare serves through their own DNS and helps in securing your servers from malicious attacks, bots, etc.

We’ve been using CloudFare with a bunch of our clients and the results have been more than wonderful.

Setting Up CloudFare For Your WordPress

Before setting up CloudFare for your website to increase the speed, you must check with the web hosting. Because Page Load Time also depends on your web hosting. For better results it is always recommended to use better web hosting. If you’re looking to signup for hosting for your WordPress site, here’s our review of hosting providers.

Step 2: You will see the header as “Add a Website”- Enter your website address in the space provided and click on “Add Website” button.

Step 3: CloudFare will then scan your website; meanwhile you will be shown one video describing the method setting up account with CloudFare CDN. Once the scan is complete, Press “Continue” button present over there.This will inform about all DNS associated with your website.

Step 4: After that you will see two lists of domains and subdomains of your website. One with Orange CloudFare Icon and other with the Gray CloudFare Icon. Orange CloudFare represents domains or subdomains passed through the CloudFare and are the optimized one. While on the other hand Gray CloudFare represents domains or subdomains that bypass the CloudFare network. Ensure your main domain and subdomains are under the Orange CloudFare icon.

Step 5: Once, you are done with domain categorization, you need to click on “I have added all missing records, Continue” button to proceed ahead with the setup.

Step 6: Here you need to choose the plan, performance and security further followed by few recommended settings. Select the options available under each segment, according to your requirements and click on “Continue” button. CloudFare will ask you to update your name servers.

Step 7: For changing the name servers, you need to first login to Hosting account. Click on the option “Domain Manager” and press on “Name Server”. After that, you will be allowed to choose the domain servers which need to be renamed. Choose server provided by CloudFare and then click on “Use custom Nameservers” and feed the new data. Once it is completed press on “Save Nameserver Settings” button.

Step 8: Go back to starting point and click on the option “I have updated my server name, press on Continue to finish”.

Benefits of CloudFare CDN

Speed- User experiences faster service and their waiting time getting reduced and efficiency gets enhanced.

Apps- You will get free apps which will enhance the user experience. Some free apps like SmartErros, UserVoice, PunchTab etc.

Analytics- CloudFare CDN shows a detailed analysis of your website. This includes information’s like number of pages crawled, page views, retention time, etc.

Threat Control- This feature helps users in white listing and black listing the websites to prevent attacks on your website.

Development Mode- This option is very helpful when you keep changing your website. Changes include, image, JavaScript, etc. It should be noted that this mode last only for 3 hours.

Rocket Loader- If you have advanced version of CloudFare you can enjoy further lighting speed as it loads all JavaScript code asynchronously.

At WpKoala we understand your need for customizable WordPress services. Check out our plans that includes: